


Damaged Goods: Damaged, But Good

by allthegoodnamesaretakendammit



Series: Raincheck [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Age Difference, Disability, F/M, Girls just wanna have fun, Hookah, I fucking deplore the use of hookah okay but Sakura is an adventurous young woman in her twenties, Not Canon Compliant, Older Man/Younger Woman, Sakura is 25-ish and Kakashi is however old Kakashi is, Shenanigans, and Ibiki has the soul of an old man so his actual age doesn't really matter, and she's gonna do whatever the fuck she wants, endgame Kakashi/Sakura, mention of PTSD, see endnotes for deets, slight Ibiki/Sakura, slightly ableist commentary, some nice hints of misogyny for flavor, staying up all night just to chat, very slight medical kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-09 21:44:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15276822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthegoodnamesaretakendammit/pseuds/allthegoodnamesaretakendammit
Summary: A houseplant in peril, a dubious love triangle, and a night of revelations.





	Damaged Goods: Damaged, But Good

 

 

Sakura wakes up to the jangly tune that was, three weeks ago, her favorite song. You know, before she set it as her alarm.

 

She starts her day off right: sliding out from the sleep-warm covers, pulling on her crisp work clothes, and murdering a few trees. You know, just to make sure she isn't losing her touch. Then she has breakfast--orange slices and buttered toast and some grilled chicken that's begging to be eaten before it has to be thrown out. Sakura is on her last orange slice when she remembers to water the gardenias in her window box. So she sets her plate down in the sink and grabs the watering can before the task can slip her mind again. She's tipping the can to slowly drizzle over the tight white buds when she catches sight of Pakkun scampering down the street, his little claws clicking on the asphalt. She'd call out and say hi, but the tiny ninken looks like he's all-business; no time to chat.

 

She wonders what errand Kakashi could have him on this early in the morning. And what Kakashi is doing awake at 5:40, anyway. Certainly not housekeeping. As she tucks away her watering can, she idly recalls that, if Ino is to be believed, Kakashi never ever waters his plants.

 

Yesterday, Ino told her that he'd bought and killed fifteen houseplants this year alone. One by one. He'd come waltzing into the shop and ask for a hardier plant each time. Ino declared that she was appalled not at his actions, but at his simple lack of shame. Then again, this is a man who regularly reads pornography in front of a gravestone. Her ears still hurt a little from Ino's shrillness--" _They're dying faster than we can sell them!"_ \--and while Sakura is sure that that's an exaggeration, she still has a surplus of feelings about it.

 

It's stupid, but that man doesn't need anymore death in his life than he's already got.

 

*

 

The hospital is buzzing with early morning activity when Sakura punches in right at 6:29AM. She grabs her first chart of the day, steeling herself because the attendant at the main desk has the good grace to schedule the worst patients earlier in the day, whenever possible. Since the worst patients tend to be high caliber leaf nin who wake up at the ass-crack of dawn by habit, the system seems to work just fine.

 

Sakura blinks down at her chart, surprised to see the name _MORINO IBIKI_ stamped there in red lettering. And then, the gist of it: intense scarring all over his body, presently experiencing difficulty with his tongue. Limited tactile sensation. Slow reduction in the sensitivity of his tastebuds. Possibly a residual flare-up of whatever chemical or biological agent was originally used on it.

 

She walks into the examining room and there he is, sitting serenely in one of the patient chairs. He's like a dark cut-out against the white hospital room, eyes sharp as she closes the door behind her.

 

She sits on her fancy spinny chair and says, "Morino Ibiki. Pretty sure I haven't seen you since the Chūnin Exams."

 

"Somehow, I don't think that's true," he answers and they both smile, remembering last year's all-jounin pre-festival summer soirée. Now _that_ was a party.

 

She taps the manila folder in her hands and says, "I see you're having some trouble with your tongue. Mind if I ask you a few questions?"

 

He inclines his head, so she starts by asking, "Are there any particular tastes that you're having trouble picking up?"

 

"No. All of them simply taste... less."

 

"How long has this been happening?"

 

"It started six months ago. Slowly enough that I thought I was imagining it."

 

Sakura makes a note of it on her clipboard and asks, "Any trouble with speech? Slurring, difficulty with certain sounds?"

 

"No. Just less sensitivity. If I bite my tongue, it doesn't hurt as much as it should."

 

"Are you experiencing similar problems anywhere else?"

 

"No."

 

"Alright. Then I'd like to take a look," she says as she stands, setting her clipboard and chart aside. Ibiki moves to stand as well, likely to move to the examining table, but Sakura puts a hand on his shoulder and says, "No, you're good where you are," because Jesus Christ is he tall. She'd need a telescope just to see into his mouth if he were sitting on the table.

 

Out of respect for his probable paranoia around medical equipment, she tries to succinctly explain how the diagnosis is going to go. "I'm going to start by examining your tongue by sight and touch, then with chakra," she says as she snaps on a pair of elastic gloves. Standing in front of him while he's seated, she's still only a head taller than him. Sakura tries to ignore her... womanly appreciation of his enormity. She clicks on her little flashlight and leans forward as he opens his mouth unprompted. She can't help but notice that he has really nice teeth and, also, that there's nothing visibly off about his tongue. In fact, it's a very handsome one, as far as tongues go.

 

Sakura checks his mouth over more thoroughly and, finding nothing, pockets the flashlight saying, "Alright, I'm going to examine your tongue by touch now. Feel free to move it a little if you're uncomfortable, but try to generally keep it in the same place."

 

Ibiki nods, so she leans in and runs her index finger cursorily down the center of his tongue. She watches his throat work as he reflexively swallows and she knows she's being professional, that she's just doing her job and she's doing it well, but damn the sight of that is nice. Having her hand in this scary man’s mouth is surreal, but not as surreal as the fact that she kind of likes it and, if she trusts her instincts here, that he does too. Sakura methodically strokes her fingers over the rest of his tongue, taking mental notes: his reflexes are good and there are no particular areas where he doesn't respond to touch. No inflammation, no irregularities, and no scarring as far she can see.

 

She extracts her fingers from his mouth and says, "Okay, I'm going to use chakra now. It might tingle a little, but it shouldn't hurt."

 

He nods again, stoic, and she pulls on a new pair of gloves so that she doesn't get spit all over him when she cups his jaw in her hands. Her chakra leaps to her fingertips, eager to be used, eager to help. She channels the pale green burst of it into gently probing the nerve endings of his mouth, paying particular attention to the topmost layer of his tongue.

 

The scarring isn't visually apparent after all these years, but after a few sweeps of her chakra scan and one diagnostic jutsu later, the damage is pretty obvious: small clusters of nerves failing to respond to any stimuli, scattered here and there across his tongue. The pain receptors are still mostly in working order and the damage to them is also, thankfully, limited to the top of his tongue. It's the work of a moment to realize that there are no real jutsu to help with that kind of damage.

 

She pulls back, strips off her gloves, and makes a quick note of her diagnosis on his chart. Then she plops back down onto her chair and says, "I'm sure this will seem obvious to you, but it's only your tastebuds and a few nerve endings that are damaged. Nothing else is structurally wrong with your tongue." Ibiki doesn't look relieved, but Sakura suspects that it's due to time-tested professionalism more than anything. "The good news is that there is no single portion of your tongue that has been completely jeopardized. Different sections of the tongue gauge specific tastes, so this means that you haven't completely lost the ability to taste any one flavor."

 

She folds her hands in her lap and concludes, "Since we still don't know what agent was used on your tongue in the first place and we can't regenerate the nerves that have already deadened, I think our safest option is to create a serum that will heighten the sensitivity in the remaining taste buds and pain receptors. This will also hopefully fortify them against what's occurring in the damaged ones. Once we administer the serum, you'd need to come in regularly to track its effectiveness, but those checkups would only take about five minutes each."

 

Ibiki asks several intelligent questions about what the serum would do on a chemical level and he looks satisfied with her answers after about fifteen minutes of back and forth.

 

With him onboard for the treatment plan, Sakura moves onto more temporary concerns, saying, "My recommendation, at this point, is to find more intense flavors to tide you over in the meantime. Otherwise, we may see a sharp drop in your appetite, and you need to be eating regularly in order to stay fighting fit." She clips her pen to the board with a snap. "How do you feel about spicy food?"

 

"I used to completely avoid it, but in the last few years I've come to enjoy what little I've had of it." There’s a certain irony to hearing that the head of Torture and Interrogation couldn't handle a little heat on his curry.

 

"I'd advise you to experiment with it in the coming weeks, to maintain your appetite while the serum is developed. Spiciness will tingle and give you a chance to enjoy intensity and texture despite your tongue's decrease in sensitivity. You're in luck, too--there are some truly excellent restaurants with spicy food in this part of town."

 

"Are there? I'm not sure I know of any."

 

Sakura smiles and takes the opening for what it is, answering, "I'd be happy to introduce you to some of my favorites. Are you free for lunch this afternoon?"

 

*

 

So they end up trying a few restaurants known for their spicy food together, which looks a hell of a lot like dating.

 

Sakura starts them off at one of her tried and true favorites, a mom and pop place down the street. The little restaurant is bustling with the lunch rush and Ibiki is enjoying his chili-flecked enokitake as obviously as a stoic man like him is able. As Sakura polishes off her second glass of citrus soda, she could have sworn she saw Kakashi passing by, a bag of groceries under his arm. But then their ancient, sweet-faced waitress puts a steaming platter of gyoza in front of them and Sakura forgets everything but the flavor of pork dipped in chuka tare for awhile.

 

*

 

One week later, they are relaxing in a booth at a bistro called Nourish--which, _eh_ \--and over udon, Sakura updates him on the progress she’s made on the serum. It’s a sweltering day, and by the time Sakura is done explaining the herbal extracts involved, it's gotten pretty stuffy in this joint, so Ibiki pulls off the hitai-ate trapping heat around his head. His forehead shines with the beginnings of sweat and above it--burn marks, dents from screws, and long, thin slashes that could have been made by anything. Professionals that they are, the two of them speak nothing of it.

 

But she likes it. She likes that he would choose to take it off, that he’d listen to her rattle on about price estimates and the shape of chakra coils inside the tongue. They don't play footsie under the table or anything like that, but honestly, they don’t need to. And if there’s the flash of a pornographic shade of orange in the crowd--unmistakably the cover of an _Icha Icha_ novel--then she makes an executive decision not to worry about that just yet.

 

*

 

The week after that, the heat has finally slackened enough for them to take a little two-person table outside, splitting an enormous order of tonkatsu drizzled with rayu. Sakura finds herself asking him out of the blue, "When did you realize that it wasn't your imagination?"

 

Ibiki smiles and, without needing further clarification, says, "When I had my favorite dango and realized that it barely brought a smile to my face."

 

Sakura blinks and adopts an air of innocence, asking, “You smile?”

 

Ibiki looks charmed. That’s precisely when Kakashi sidles up to their table, leaning against one of the poles that holds up the restaurant’s awning. He eyes Ibiki and says, casual as anything, "I'm surprised to see you here."

 

As cool and in command as ever, Ibiki replies, "Where else would I be?"

 

"Snoring in the forest." Kakashi stretches the vowels out so that the pun makes itself clear: _Mori no Ibiki_ _._ Ibiki's eye twitches. Sakura snorts and thinks that Ibiki probably hasn't heard that play on his name since he first learned to wield a kunai and his classmates were too intimidated to tease him.

 

With that, her phone chimes to tell her that her lunch break is over in five minutes. So she shoves one last piece of chicken into her mouth, slaps down enough money to cover the whole meal, and says, “Got to go. See you next week, Morino-san.”

 

*

 

When the serum is finally ready for testing some weeks later, they see twice as much of each other thanks to the increase in check-ups and their standing Friday lunch date. By the third check-up, Ibiki’s seen a little progress with his tongue’s tactility, but no sign of change where taste is concerned.

 

At the moment, Sakura is probing his tongue for swelling or any other adverse reactions, her latex-covered fingers making ridiculous squelching noises in his mouth. She makes a point of examining his gums, too, but knows better than to mess with the flint secreted away in his molars. Still, she can't help wondering if the taste is there, sharp and smokey. The thought dissipates when she senses a sudden presence outside the window, and she turns with a glare already on her face.

 

It’s Kakashi, nonchalantly perched outside their third-story window. He’s just sitting there on the ledge, face buried in his shameful green book. And she knows that the compulsive porn-reading is a coping mechanism, okay--she had to read up on that kind of stuff during her medic-nin training--but that doesn't make it any less weird.

 

She turns to Ibiki to ask him silently if he wants her to kick Kakashi out of this extremely confidential environment. He gives the smallest of all possible smiles around her fingers and rolls his eyes so quick she thinks she might have made it up. So they keep on running down the checklist, and by the time Sakura is done updating Ibiki’s file, Kakashi is gone.

 

*

 

As far as Sakura can tell, Kakashi swings wildly between stalking his precious people and briefly forgetting that they exist. Emotionally, he’s kind of a loose cannon.

 

Couldn’t be more different from Ibiki, in that way. Ibiki's so strict, is the thing. Reasonable when you come right down to it. A harsh shell, but a warm, laughing person at his center. With an unwavering focus on the truth. And she can sense something within Ibiki, something animal and interested, that keeps him coming back to her week to week.

 

Or, in the sage words of Ino: " _There's no way he's not a freak in bed."_

 

Feeling wanted is nice, that’s for sure. And it’s novel to get a little male attention from someone who’s not a goofball from her generation. Maybe that’s why she likes it: how settled he is in his own life, grounded by age.

 

Sakura is done chasing after boys. She needs a man.

 

Plus, she thinks Ibiki’s jowls are cute.

 

In fact, that’s exactly what she’s thinking as she watches him eat gyūdon one week later. Sakura, who has been all spiced out, works on her plate of brown sugared beef. Apropos of nothing, Ibiki says, “The serum you’ve created is a piece of art. I doubt I could have gone to any other specialist and found such effective treatment.”

 

Sakura, who doesn’t have a single gracious bone in her body these days, tells him, "Well, I _am_ pretty smart."

 

"You answered all of the questions in the first portion of the Chūnin exam without cheating. I _know_ you're smart."

 

As flattered as she is that he remembers, Sakura can’t help but wonder, "Who the hell came up with those crazy test questions, anyway?"

 

Ibiki smiles like he knows that she won't believe the answer and says, "Umino Iruka, actually. Whenever he has a difficult day at work, he comes up with the cruelest test questions imaginable and then never uses them. Raidou spotted a list of them on Iruka’s desk and thought they'd make an excellent addition to the Chūnin exams."

 

Huh.

 

*

 

As fate would have it, she runs into Iruka later that same afternoon, right outside the training grounds. They make small talk while the sun beats down on them, the cicadas crescendoing into a high whine. It’s the perfect opportunity because if Sakura asks Kakashi about it, he'll just clam up or play obtuse. Iruka, on the other hand…

 

"Sensei, this is going to sound crazy, but do you know anything about Kakashi's house plants?"

 

Iruka pinches the bridge of his nose and says, "Funny you should ask about that--he wouldn't shut up about it the other night." Sakura wears an interested expression that she doesn't have to fake, so he goes on. "Well, you're old enough now that I don't mind admitting to you that I have standing tradition of getting completely drunk the night after every Academy graduation," Iruka says, scratching a tad self-consciously at the scar across the bridge of his nose. Sakura nods understandingly, pleased deep within herself that she's matured to the point where Iruka can say things like that to her in confidence.

 

"Well this time, I had a little company." Iruka puts his hands in his pockets and still looks a little mystified by it all. "Kakashi drank triple what I did and then started rambling about how shame shortens everything's lifespan. I asked him what that even meant, and he dove right into a story about his house plants. Right after buying a new plant, Kakashi will place it on the sill where it gets plenty of sunlight. But he forgets to water it, so it starts looking withered and ugly, so he takes it off the sill so that no one will see it through the window and judge him, so it dies exponentially faster without sun _or_ water." Iruka sighs and shakes his head. "Waste of money, if you ask me."

 

Theories of ritualistic herbicide confirmed, Sakura nods and says, "Yeah, what a waste." She hoists her weapons bag a little higher and takes a step toward the trees. "Anyway, Sensei, it was nice to see you!" She trots away, about a hundred useless plant-saving schemes swirling through her head.

 

*

 

Five weeks into treatment, Ibiki hasn’t shown a single adverse reaction yet and his taste buds are slowly but surely improving. Incidentally, they have now patronized every restaurant with spicy food in downtown. They officially have no excuse to be hanging out.

 

They begin making their rounds again, anyway--circling right back to the mom and pop place they started with.

 

She'll keep on with it, if for no other reason than the fact that Ibiki has a smile that throws the scar across his lips out of alignment. And if that's wrong, if that's not understandable, well. Sakura's always kind of liked her men fucked up. Apparently she likes them mysterious, too, since one of them wears a dramatic black trench coat all the time, and the other has never let her see his face.

 

God, _men._

 

So sue her, it drives her to drink that Saturday night. Worse, it drives her to drink with _Naruto._ He’s deep in his cups because he’s still missing Jiraiya terribly, so she doesn’t bother nagging him about overindulging. As a matter of fact, overindulging is probably the only thing that drives him to slump against the bar and confess, "You know I was Ero-Sennin's proofreader, right?"

 

Sakura mutters, "Well, it's not like the writing quality could get any worse."

 

Naruto slurs, "Well, this one time _\--_ _hic_ _\--_ he was behind on his writing schedule. Usually when that happens, it's cuz he's written a few chapters that he doesn't feel confident about. Bastard'll stash them away until he decides whether or not they're good enough to share. _Hic!_ Those always turn out to be his best work." Naruto leans heavily against the bartop, staring down at it with his head braced on his fist. "So I went through his desk to find the good stuff. And there were pages and pages of this totally different story--about a guy with silken, raven hair and a tongue that was six feet long. Limber. Eyes like the bottom of a whiskey glass." Naruto looks blearily up, people-watching through the cigarette smoke that hangs over the room. "The pages were yellow at the edges. Old. At the very bottom of his drawer."

 

Sakura doesn't know what to say, so she says, "Shit."

 

Naruto nods agreeably. "People want things. People mess stuff up. And when we hesitate before we're about to make a huge mistake, I think that's when we really fuck everything up." Sakura swallows her incredulous, despairing laughter and thinks, _When the hell did Naruto get smarter than me?_

 

*

 

Twelve weeks into treatment, the serum is now a tentative success. Ibiki has routinely reported a gradually increased sensitivity in his tastebuds and in his tongue's pain receptors. Which is great because it means the end of his treatment is in sight and it sucks because Sakura's _still_ not sure that she's worked up the nerve to ask him out properly.

 

She shoves her plate away from her, satisfied to just sit there and listen to the rustle of newspaper pages from the table beside them and watch Ibki bite into a piece of seared salmon. He swallows and says, "I used to have this all the time, but today, it's like I've never tasted it before." Most people would sound awed when they admit something like that, but Ibiki sounds neutral, as if reading a weather report off of a sheet of paper. Sakura smiles at it, to think that his matter-of-factness is a constant state of being for him.

 

The man from the next table over drops his newspaper and says, "Yo.” He pauses, and then innocently asks, “Am I interrupting something?”

 

It’s Kakashi, because of course it is. So Ibiki tells him plainly, “Yes.”

 

“Oh. My mistake,” Kakashi says in a low drone. Then he _raises his newspaper again_ and gives every sign that he’s returned to reading it without a care in the world.

 

Sakura is sitting this shit out. She absolutely hates getting into arguments with people when they’re inhabiting that ambiguous space between friends and more-than-friends. That, more than any other reason, is why she sits there quietly when Ibiki brings another bit of salmon to his mouth before saying, "Very professional of you, Hatake."

 

“And the same to you, Morino,” Kakashi genially returns. Sakura can just sense the word _baldy_ on the tip of his tongue.

 

“Oh? Care to share your opinion?” Ibiki asks, completely casual as he sets his chopsticks down and turns to face Kakashi’s table fully. They’re fighting words, for all that they don’t sound like it.

 

Kakashi lowers his newspaper just enough to reveal one pitch black eye and Sakura knows that there’d be goosebumps all over her skin if he looked at her like that. But he’s not. He’s looking at Ibiki when he says in an utterly neutral tone, “You’ve gone on fifteen dates and have yet to pursue a relationship. And you’ve done that because you know that you’re unworthy of her.”

 

Sakura leans back in her chair, a part of her happy to just hear him say it already. The “unworthy” bit wasn’t what she was expecting, but in some ways, it’s better than being told that their interest in each other is age-inappropriate. The loose braid she’s got her hair in today slips over her shoulder as she sinks further back and waits for Ibiki’s answer.

 

But Ibiki isn’t saying anything. He’s staring Kakashi down, his expression carved from stone. The clink of cutlery and the dull roar of conversation attests to the fact that the civilians around them do not give flying fuck about their little ninja staring contest. A full minute passes in silence. Then Ibiki closes his eyes, breathes out through his nose, and says, “Good luck. The two of you will need it.” He sets down enough money to cover the full meal, stands, and shrugs on his coat as Sakura watches him with widening eyes. "Too young for me, anyway," Ibiki mutters, and then he skulks away.

 

"But not me?" Kakashi answers, voice thick with disbelief as he lets his paper fall to the table. Ibiki waves a hand and, in the typical shinobi fashion, it could be to grant Kakashi his approval and it could just as easily be a polite acknowledgment to the smiling couple behind the dango stand.

 

Silence descends again--and it’s the kind where you can hear another person’s breathing, the kind where the world goes still and the beat of your own blood fills you. Sakura leans back a little further in her chair, soaking up that feeling while it lasts. She’s nervous, but she doesn’t need to explain herself. She knows she doesn’t, and he knows it, too. All the same, she takes a moment to admire the way his hair is streaked with slanted sunlight, the length of his fingers before they disappear into his gloves. It’s nice to see him. It’s _always_ nice to see him, even when he’s being a dingus. At long last, Kakashi clears his throat, and it sounds awfully dry. "So," he says, rubbing the back of his head. "You, uh, want to get some sashimi tonight?"

 

And Sakura learned her lesson during the Chūnin Exams, dammit: you can't lean on the hope that you'll get a second chance at this kind of thing. So she makes a show of scoffing and says, "I'll be by your place to water your plant at six. _Then_ we can have sashimi." The best part is when Kakashi doesn't even ask why she knows about that. He just slouches a little as his eye creases in what she has always had to assume is a smile and lazily ambles away.

 

Good thing it’s a Friday. Sakura doesn’t plan on getting much sleep tonight.

 

*

 

It's eight o'clock that night and she's really fucking tired of listening to these crickets chirp outside of his ugly beige apartment complex. Sakura leans against the front of building, trying to kick a stray piece of gravel between the mailboxes across the street in the game she’s invented for herself in the last two hours of waiting. The rock misses by inches when Ino and Tenten round the corner, all dolled up and laughing. Tenten spots Sakura first, calling out, “Sakura-chan! What are you doing out here?’

 

“Waiting for Kakashi,” Sakura sighs.

 

Ino frowns. Then she points her finger right in Sakura’s face and says, “You’ve spent too much of your life waiting for that lazy guy! Come on, you’re going to the hookah bar with us.”

 

She winds her arm through Sakura’s and starts dragging her down the street even as Sakura laughs, “Smoking hookah is irresponsible! We still don’t know the long term health outcomes--”

 

Oh wow. The hookah bar is just a little further down the street and it’s got so many pretty lights and comfy-looking lounges inside. Tenten takes Sakura’s other arm and starts telling her about all the different flavors they’re going to try.

 

Well. Just a little couldn’t hurt.

 

*

 

Two and a half hours later, she stumbles back out onto the sidewalk, feeling all spinny and giggly. Giddy. She turns to the general direction of home and starts skipping her way there. She makes it five feet before she catches sight of a man sauntering in the opposite direction, a slim pink book covering his face. It lowers just an inch and then there is Kakashi’s eye, staring blankly at her over the top of his book. He looks like he’s about to spout off one of his classic excuses, but he gets a whiff of her right when he opens his mouth. “Hookah,” he drawls, immediately adopting an air of disapproval. "You know an hour of that has the same effect as smoking a hundred cigarettes?"

 

"Nope, didn't know that," she giggles, staring at what may or may not be a paper bag in the alleyway, but it looks so much like a cat. "Here, kitty, kitty!" she says, trying to tempt it with wiggling fingers. Kakashi looks concerned for her wellbeing.

 

She gives up on the alley cat that probably isn’t even an alley cat and keeps shuffling down the sidewalk. “How much time did you spend in there?”Kakashi asks, sliding his book back into his jacket and falling into stride with her.

 

“A lot.” Sakura tells him about the nice couches and how the smoke wasn’t supposed to get you high, but _god_ it was nice, and there were so many relaxed people and about a hundred different flavors.

 

“Chocolate? Really?”

 

He sounds a little tempted to try it himself, but Sakura warns him off of it, saying, “It tasted like someone put their cigarette out in a chocolate milkshake.”

 

They wander vaguely in the direction of his apartment but pass it without mention, too busy discussing whether or not fruit are overrepresented in the available hookah flavors. The two of them amble down side streets until they walk by an all-you-can-eat yakitori place that they both agree smells _amazing_ with a sign in the window that reads "No Akimichis Allowed."

 

They sit down at the end of an empty line of barstools and order a platter of yakitori immediately. When the waiter walks away, Sakura turns and pokes Kakashi in the side, asking, "You're not secretly an Akimichi are you?"

 

"That doesn't seem likely, does it?" A classic Shinobi non-answer.

 

And then they eat. Platefuls of tender white chicken and sticky ginger beef disappear quickly between the two of them, and soon enough Sakura is wiping her hands clean on a napkin, saying, "This was nice."

 

"I suppose. If you’re into this sort of thing."

 

She pokes him in the side again and says, "I've got your number."

 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

 

"I'm important," she answers, twisting a grubby yakitori stick between her fingers.

 

"Oh?" he says, clearly having lost her train of thought.

 

"You're late to everything important. And tonight, you were really, really late."

 

Silence falls, and the sizzle of the grill in the back and the murmur of other customers fill it. And then Kakashi says, "I had to help a lonely orphan choose which kitten to adopt."

 

Sakura closes her eyes and smiles hugely to herself, saying, "You're such a fucking liar."

 

"The shelter had a high kill rate, so we had to be extra-careful about which one we picked--"

 

She tosses the yakitori stick at his head and he lets it connect with his hitai-ate with a soft clack, before it tumbles to his plate. That's when their server shows up with the check and they spend the next ten minutes amiably arguing over the bill, both of them insisting that the other owes them money. But in no way does Sakura owe this mooch a single fucking cent, so they end up splitting the bill as though they lived in a just and egalitarian society.

 

Hookah brings out the poke in her. That much becomes obvious after he drawls, "It’s been a long day. Next stop for me is my apartment." Sakura pokes him as punishment for being mysterious about whether or not he wants her to come with him. His side must be getting sore because he swings out of the way of it and says, “Quit that.”

 

"I'll quit if you get there first, slow-poke!" she hollers, tearing off into the night. The breeze feels awesome, hopping from roof to roof with the late-night air rushing around her. When she bounces up to his apartment mere seconds later, he's already leaning against the door to the complex, studying his nails with _feigned_ feigned interest.

 

It is somehow a non-issue, whether she should come up to his place or what it even means for her to be there. She simply bounces up the stairs after him and listens to him fiddle with the lock, hours of waiting making the prospect of seeing the inside of his apartment much more exciting than it should be.

 

When the door swings inward, they lurch into the sprawling dark of his apartment. Sakura finds herself giggling, brushing her fingers over the nearest wall like she's trying to see it through touch. Even now, in the absence of all visual cues, being in here is kind of magical. His walls are painted, not wallpapered. She didn't know that five minutes ago.

 

She can also hear the low hum of somebody's dishwasher upstairs, and the crickets are blessedly silenced by it. Sakura takes a deep breath and tries to identify the quiet aromas of the apartment: faint traces of laundry detergent and something that smells like maleness. She can just sense him aiming to flick on a lamp, so she stumbles over to him and clutches his arm, saying, "Shhhh, don't turn on the light. I'm learning so much." She strokes the wall.

 

“Sakura,” he says, the timbre of his voice resonant with worry or laughter or  _something._

 

Crazy as it is that she’s only just realized it, all she can think is: “Wow, you have a really deep voice.”

 

He makes noncommittal noise that hovers somewhere between _I guess_ and _if you say so_ _._ She can hear him reach for the lamp again, so she swats his arm. It’s a light hit, right on target, and he gives a soft _oof_ on impact. She can hear him rubbing his arm and starts giggling again, pleased beyond words that she can tag him like that now.

 

Everything feels close in the dark like this, and the sound of their breathing is enormous as she feels along the wall. Her hand brushes something flat and textured. It feels woven and it sways a little as Sakura touches it. A wall-hanging?

 

Kakashi dives for the lamp while she’s distracted by trying to guess what the wall-hanging might depict. She hears a rush of air and is only halfway to stopping him by the time light floods the room. Their eyes adjust quickly enough, and Sakura blinks the sting away to find a plain little one-room apartment dominated by the bed and a broad window above it, its curtains already drawn. The hardwood floor is bordered by off-white walls dotted with tapestries and abstract landscape paintings. And there, on the windowsill, is a sad-looking plant, in a pot labelled--"Mr. Ukki?"

 

"What about him?" Kakashi asks.

 

Sakura’s got nothing but honesty tonight, so she tells it to him straight: “I fear for his safety.” Apparently Kakashi has hit his limit for confusion, because he just kind of sinks to the floor and she follows him down. The bed is right there, but they don't take it. They sit on the hardwood with their backs leaning up against the bedframe, Sakura with her arms wrapped around her knees.

 

She points to the line of gnarled yellow rocks on his desk and asks, “What are those?”

 

“Desert glass,” he says. And then, without further prompting, he offers, “One for each of my shittiest missions in Suna.” There are six. She lets her head loll to the side and thunk against his shoulder, her braid swinging with the motion.

 

He’s scared of loss, confronts it everyday, seeks out concrete reminders of it in order to ward off possible future happiness. Foreclosing further grief before it can even happen. Drowning in the two things that give him comfort: porn and the belief that he will always be alone. Kakashi is the textbook definition of PTSD. Sakura knows because she read the textbook.

 

No one can say that she doesn’t know what she’s getting into.

 

“It’s really sad that you don’t have a couch,” she says, but not in a sympathetic way.

 

She watches his lips move under his mask as he says, "You're so mean, Sakura," which means _I love you_ _._ Or at least, _I like you a lot._

 

Sakura worms her way closer to him, twines her arms around his waist, and rests her cheek against the puff of his flak jacket, right over his collarbone. The position leaves his arm slung over her back and she’s kind of surprised by the amount of heat he gives off, for a guy so lean.

 

As it turns out, side-hugs are satisfying if you know how to do them right. Or, put another way: Kakashi turns out to be a pretty tactile guy, once you get close enough. He doesn’t tense up or try to slip out through the window. The arm over her back is relaxed and his fingers run lightly over the last few knots of her braid. When she rests her full weight against him, it leaves her breasts pressed into his side and his chest rising and falling quietly under her cheek.

 

The easiness of it has her her slipping into a kind of doze. The minutes pass. She tries to use the sound of her own voice to wake herself back up. "This is nice," she says with a hovering sense of deja vu.

 

"I guess," he answers, with his eyes still closed like he’s taking a nap. "If you're into this sort of thing."

 

"I am," she says with a surprising amount of confidence, peering up at him. "Are you?"

 

"I might be."

 

What a perfectly noncommittal man.

 

It leaves her staring at his mouth again, the contours of shadow it makes under that mask. When he finally open his eyes and looks down at her, it’s to ask, “Are you thinking about kissing me?”

 

She immediately answers, “No. Are you?”

 

“No, I’m not thinking about kissing me.”

 

They stare at each other. Then a grin steals over Sakura’s face and she says, “I bet you are now.” She would totally watch him make out with himself. Hell, she’d pay to see that. She must get a little caught up in imagining it because the next things she knows, Kakashi is snapping his fingers in front of her face.

 

In lieu of apologizing, she laughs, “That hookah fucked me up real good.”

 

“I’m happy for you.”

 

She tucks her knees up underneath herself and turns to him again, asking, “Are you? Happy for me?”

 

He tilts his head away, as if not looking at her makes it easier for him to say, “About as happy as I ever am for anyone else.” That’s like, the nicest thing he’s ever said to her.

 

But never let it be said that Sakura has grown into a gracious, meek person. “You know what would make me really happy?”

 

When he looks down at her again, she knows that he does. It’s weird, how simple it is when he leans down and she leans up--and then, finally, there is kissing. It’s her bare lips against the soft material of his mask, but even still, it’s hot. The kind of kiss she can feel in her scalp and in her toes.

 

Kakashi moves away, pulls his mask down, and ducks in for another kiss--and he does it lightning-quick, before she can get a good look at his face.

 

Ah, but what she can feel…

 

He has chapped lips, not too thick and not too thin. And he’s kissing her like he fucking loves it, rubbing their lips together and clearly savoring it. Broad palms, long fingers. Good for playing the piano. Good for playing with her hair when his hand cups the back of her head and his thumb sweeps over her scalp.

 

All of it leaves her pleased right down to her bones.

 

When she pulls away, it’s to rest her head on his chest and spiral her fingers along the red patch on his sleeve. She can’t bring herself to look at his face when it’s clearly not what he wants. So she keeps her eyes closed and just snuggles into him. She has to readjust to rest her chin on top of the square poof of his chest pockets, though. Jounin vests are _so_ unwieldy.

 

His hand slips out of her hair and rests on her back again when he confesses, “I was starting to think I wasn’t your type.”

 

She huffs into his vest and says, “Please. You and Ibiki are practically the same guy.”

 

“But he’s so… bald.”

 

"Well," she says, "you're both sadists." Kakashi puts a hand to his chest like he’s been wounded. So she presses him, "Are you telling me you don't get a thrill when you've made someone wait for you in the rain for several hours and then give them a flimsy excuse for being late?"

 

"Oh." Kakashi deflates a little under her cheek. "Well, I guess if you count that..."

 

Things go quiet again.

 

And then: "I knew where to find you. I mean--if I got really fed up with waiting, I knew exactly where to look."

 

"Maa, maa," he says lightly. “I’m too mysterious for that.”

 

She hums in answer, wrapping her arms around his middle again. Her mind wanders hither and yon, seemingly in the mood for twenty questions: “Why is Gai your best friend?”

 

“Eternal rival,” Kakashi corrects. Then he deigns to actually answer the question: "Gai is... nonjudgmental."

 

Well, that makes sense. That’s half the appeal of being friends with Naruto, after all. So she doesn’t try to cross-examine Kakashi about it. Instead, she asks: “Has anyone ever criticized you for the way you taught us?”

 

“Oh sure,” he offers breezily, slumped against the bedframe. “It was hardly according to the jounin guidelines, the approach I took with you three.”

 

“Guidelines?” To her knowledge, teaching a genin team was a free-for-all hurricane of nostalgia and violence.

 

“Jounin who are about to be assigned a genin team get shuffled into a best-practices crash course. Gai asked if it was appropriate to require all of his students dress like him."

 

Sakura laughs obnoxiously loud for this time of night, and when she opens her eyes to see if he’s being serious, it’s to see his mask up again. She jabs him in the side in a silent demand for more. "Asuma just wanted to know if he would be held fiscally responsible if one of his kids hacked up a lung from inhaling secondhand smoke." Sakura chuckles and gestures for him to keep it coming. "Kurenai asked how long she could leave her students trapped in genjutsu before it was considered cruel and unusual."

 

Sakura gives him an amused huff and says, "And you, what did you ask?"

 

"I asked if I could recuse myself because I was uninterested in learning, and was therefore unfit to teach."

 

"Somehow, I don't think they accepted that excuse."

 

"What makes you say that?" God, he's so full of shit. She leans back in to press her smile into his vest. He pets her head.

 

The dishwasher upstairs has shut off, and the crickets are audible through the walls again. Sakura presses an ear to his chest, right over the thump-de-bump of his heart. "I don't want to hear the crickets," she says by way of explanation.

 

After another few minutes of quiet, Kakashi suddenly says, "I never thought of you like this, when you three were just my hopeless little genin."

 

His honesty stokes her own, so she answers, "Well, I thought of _you_ that way."

 

When she glances up at him, he looks two-parts shell-shocked, one-part curious, and one-part traumatized. Then his eye narrows and he leans in to examine her expression closely. "Sakura," he says, completely serious. "Are you fucking with me?"

 

"Nope," she answers. And then, with a sly expression creeping onto her face, "Not yet."

 

For all that Kakashi is a master of misdirection, it seems like he's in no mood to humor her attempts at the same. He simply stares at her, waiting for her to clarify. “Look,” she huffs. “I know I was just _the pink one_ or _the extra_ _._ I’ve been a third wheel plenty in life, okay? And it hurt that you didn’t give me much mind and it shamed me that my motivations for becoming a ninja were so shallow, but...” She stares at the abstract painting on the wall and manages to find the words. “I saw my own loneliness in you.” She kicks a leg out and idly works on a knot in her calf. “And your body is sexy and you have a certain mysterious allure. I’ve always felt that way.”

 

He sits beside her in silence for all of two minutes before he gives into his need to undermine himself: "I'm a lot older than you."

 

She decides to cut him some slack, figuring that having a best friend who natters on and on about the power of youth would make anybody over thirty feel insecure. So she shoots back, "Not mentally, you're not."

 

Kakashi agrees by way of saying, "I'm wrong in the head."

 

"Yeah, because _I'm_ so well-adjusted."

 

"I don't deserve--"

 

"I think I'll decide that," Sakura answers, wedging herself more firmly under his arm, "for myself."

 

"I know I'm not supposed to ask this, but... are you a virgin?" he says, clearly expecting to be punched through the wall. Now he's _really_ trying to sabotage himself.  

 

"No," she admits freely, stripped of all shame. Then she bats her eyelashes at him and says, in her most insouciant manner, "But we could pretend. I could call you sensei."

 

She can physically feel him shudder under her as he says, "Oh god. Please never say that again."

 

“Hmph.” She sneaks a hand under his vest so that she can feel him up properly. It’s still through his uniform shirt, but this way she can at least feel the flex of his side when she drags her hand over it. She curbs her urge to examine his chakra coils, telling herself that she’ll cajole him into it later. He answers by sliding his hand up the back of her shirt, and the feeling of skin on skin is static-y and wonderful--even though his hand is just resting there between her shoulder blades, not even attempting to fidget with her bra straps.

 

And then, apropos of nothing, he reaches up and pulls his mask down. She looks up in surprise, unable to help herself.

 

There is a moment of awe. A long nose, a strong jaw, and not a hint of stubble on his cheeks. Medium to pale skin. Those chapped lips she felt for herself earlier. A beauty mark dotting his chin. That sleepy black eye that she’s always known. He's so _handsome._ But something’s off. Something is... missing? But what--

 

Her eyes widened. " _How_ do you not have a tan-line?"

 

He scratches the back of his head in genuine sheepishness, and watching his bare mouth slant in embarrassment is uncanny. "It's a Hatake family secret."

 

“Tell me,” she immediately demands. “Tell me, tell me, tell me.”

 

He pulls his mask back up, seemingly needing the comfort of it as he explains, “Birthmarks were common in the Hatake clan. Enough so that they became an identifying feature. My ancestors developed a jutsu that disperses melanin at will, preventing any identifying marks such as tan lines or birthmarks.”

 

Sakura is dumbfounded. “Then why do you have that beauty mark?”

 

“I liked it,” he says, shrugging. “Also, that particular jutsu is a big chakra drain.”

 

But he’s still using it to avoid an ugly tan. He's weirdly vain, for a guy who wears the same thing everyday and has never, not once in the time she's known him, tried to tame his hair.

 

She kind of likes it untamed, though. It’s like a beautiful silver broom.

 

And where would he try to style it? There’s no mirrors in here. For all intents and purposes, his whole apartment seems to be this one room. No kitchen. No closet. Presumably, he has a bathroom that he shares with all of his neighbors on this floor. She knew bachelors tended to live on the bare minimum, but _sheesh._

 

Her eyes idle on the tidy line of books on his shelf--a miniature rainbow of lurid colors and trashy titles. That pink book hasn’t cropped up once tonight since he first put it away, and she takes that as a good sign. And all good signs lead to more intrusive questions.

 

"Hey, Kakashi?"

 

"Hmmm?"

 

"You know how you can copy your opponent's movements perfectly?"

 

"I'm aware of it, yes."

 

"Can you only do that with the Sharingan? Because I saw you use it on Zabuza for movements that weren't jutsu at all."

 

"Well..." he says, leaning back on his elbows. "I've always been pretty good at it. My father taught me taijutsu by making me mirror his stances. The Sharingan just helps me do it faster."

 

She claps her hands together, crying, "Oh! Oh! Mirror me!"

 

He waffles on it for a while, rubbing his chin and appearing to consider all of the ways it could go wrong. And then, finally, he sighs, "Okay." Sakura grins in victory. Kakashi grins in victory. She recoils, not realizing he was going to start mimicking her right away. He recoils, raising one hand to his chest in surprise, in a fashion she hadn't realized she had even done in the first place. She leans in, as if the speed of his mimicry will be easier to observe close up. He leans in at what truly seems to be the same moment. They're almost nose to nose now, and she knows that she's narrowed her eyes at him because that's what he's done.

 

She settles back and flips her hair away from her face. He settles back and waves his hand through the air as if he had hair to flip over his shoulder, too. The effeminacy of the gesture puts a conniving smirk on both their faces, and she turns to the side so that she can look coquettishly over her shoulder at him, batting her eyelashes. He looks coquettishly over his shoulder at her, batting his eyelashes, his movements betraying nothing but utter seriousness. Sakura pops to her feet in an instant like she's been spring-loaded, hardly able to contain the need to _move_ _._ And then, she starts to dance. She struts, she twirls, she pretends she has a fan to whirl around and snap shut. She watches as Kakashi follows her in perfect tandem, folding his arms in front of himself and shaking his hips, Kusa-style. Somehow, because Kakashi's doing it, it's less embarrassing for her to be doing it, too--even though she’s the one that started it.

 

After doing a few cartwheels to clear both of their heads, she recreates what little she remembers of the Dance of the Autumn Leaf. It involves a lot of swaying and long, measured sweeps of the arm. Sakura can't believe that Kakashi's copying her because his movements look so fluid, so elegant. Strange, how watching him act like her makes her feel more beautiful.

 

Naturally, the dance ends with them descending gently to the floor, and when she ceases the last wave of her arm, she stares up at the ceiling. After letting her skin cool down against the floor for a minute, she turns to watch him turn to watch her. She's briefly tempted to stick out her tongue or pick her nose or something because she shouldn't waste this opportunity, but it's also really nice for the two of them to just lie here and blink at the same time.

 

All of that dancing has left her hungry again. Either that, or it's the fact that it's 3 AM--the hour when you're not hungry but your body tells you that you are because you've simply been awake long enough that your stomach demands breakfast. On cue, Sakura’s stomach creaks like old door. “Snaaaaaaaacks,” Sakura translates.

 

Kakashi levers himself up from the floor and says, "I'll see what’s in the kitchen."

 

Sakura blinks. "What kitchen?" Kakashi stands in front of the stretch of bare wall between the tapestry and the foot of his bed. He forms a handsign and dispels a very sneaky genjutsu. The wall wavers and decides to become the doorway into a homely kitchenette. If she had to guess, she'd say that his main motivation to keep its existence under wraps is half because he is terribly, terribly paranoid and wishes to eliminate the possibility of his food being poisoned and half because he doesn't want anyone to see the stack of dirty dishes cluttering up his kitchen counter. Hopefully there’s a bathroom tucked away back there, too.

 

Sakura lies back down on the floor and listens to Kakashi rustle around in his pantry, rattling something in a cardboard box and crunching on a potato chip as if to see whether or not it’s stale. She hears the kitchen window unlatch, and then there's soft tapping of claws on the kitchen floor as a ninken (her money's on Pakkun because it sounds like it weighs less than thirty pounds and has a very low center of gravity) scurries up to Kakashi and says, "Boy, boss--" ah, that's definitely Pakkun, "--you smell really good!"

 

"I know," he answers ruefully. Then he says,“Status report.” Pakkun’s voice gets quieter then, quiet enough that she can only pick out the words _stabilized_ and _diplomat_ and _sake_ _._ Sounds boring. She listens as Kakashi gives Pakkun a smattering of chips to munch on and finally dismisses him with a puff of smoke. He pads back into the bedroom, a half-filled bag of potato chips under his arm.

 

Sakura doesn't even pretend not to have been listening in, immediately asking, "Hey, what do I smell like?"

 

Kakashi lowers himself onto the floor and crosses his legs, answering slowly, thoughtlessly: "You smell like you. Salt, herbs. Honey. Warmth." Unreasonably flattered, she wiggles over to him until she can rest her head in his lap. He reaches into the bag and offers her a chip, clearly expecting her to reach out and take it. She answers by opening her mouth like a demanding baby bird. It’s not surprising that she’d egg him on. It’s surprising that he’d give in so quick, though: placing the chip on her tongue and staring down at her as she crunches on it and smiles. The next thing she knows, there’s another chip waiting an inch away from her mouth. She takes it between her teeth and neither of them breaks eye contact as she eats it. They go on like that for some time. At some point, Sakura closes her eyes and just lets it happen, her head still cradled in his legs. When he runs out of chips, he replaces them with his gloved fingertips instead, resting them lightly on her lips. He starts tracing the shape of them, his thumb lingering at the seam.

 

When she opens her eyes, it’s to the sight of him leaning down again, clearly wanting to kiss her but refusing to until she has her say. She smiles at him and reaches up to slowly tug his mask down. That face returns to her by inches: the curve of his chin, the shape of his mouth.

 

She gets one last chance to enjoy the view before he closes in, his lips against hers in an upside-down kiss. Soon, she’s twisting around to kiss him at a more reasonable angle, with her kneeling in front of him and her hands braced on his knees. His mouth is salty, and she must taste even saltier. He rests a hand on her lower back, his fingertips dragging over her dress when she squeezes his knees a little. But there’s something tickling her brain, something about herbs. Something about green, growing things...

 

Sakura breaks off from the kiss with a gasp, leaps up from the floor, and jogs over to the pitiful plant on the sill, examining its parched leaves. Kakashi is apparently too cheap to buy a watering can, as far as she can see. So she dashes into the kitchen, snatches what appears to be the last clean glass, fills it, and offers it to the parched little plant in careful little splashes, trying not to overwater it. Kakashi makes no secret of watching her, commenting, "Seriously?"

 

"Even an hour can make a difference!" The words are straight from Ino's mouth, and Kakashi can probably tell because as soon as the stream of water ceases, his hand is wrapped around her ankle, yanking her onto the floor and only her totally amazing ninja reflexes save the glass in her hand from destruction. Then Kakashi's body is covering hers everything gets shuddery and hot and when his tongue slips into her mouth, she throws her arms around his neck and shows him how a real ninja does it.

 

Five minutes later, she realizes that she's about to shatter the glass that is still, miraculously, in her hand. She sets it aside as carefully as she can without actually looking at it. They do, eventually, come up for air. Which transitions very smoothly into them lying on the floor with the chip bag situated between them. They take turns eating the salty dust that’s left at the bottom of the bag. Sakura knows better than to eat this crap, but it’s incredibly satisfying and the perfect food for--“4 AM?” she says, twisted half off the ground and staring at his alarm clock.

 

“Hm?” Kakashi offers, hogging the last bits of chip dust.

 

“How did it get so late?” she wonders aloud.

 

“I ask myself that all the time,” he says consolingly. Poor guy can’t keep his hours straight. One minute he’s sitting by the monument, and the next thing he knows, it’s noon. One day he’s buying a plant to bring a bit of green into his life, and the next thing he knows, he’s buying a new one and getting yelled at by the bitchy flower girl. Sakura is Ino’s friend, so she can call her that.

 

“Do you always buy the same type of plant?”

 

“Usually,” he said. "But one time, Mr. Ukki grew thorns, so I guess I bought the wrong thing."

 

"Wait," Sakura says, a terrible suspicion rising. "Are you like one of those terrible people who buys the same breed of dog over and over and gives each one the same name, as soon as you've buried the last one?"

 

Kakashi scratches the back of his head. "Actually, most pet owners in Konoha choose to cremate."

 

" _Why_ do you _know_ that?" She catches his eye, holds it, and says, "Honestly."

 

"Honestly? I looked into it in case I ever decided to get rid of Madam Shijimi's cat. It calmed me down whenever it's tail slipped right out of my grasp." Sakura imagines a mini Kakashi: a newly minted genin stuck chasing after a surly cat--with nothing bigger to worry about than that. It puts a lump in her throat, so she busies herself with tugging off her sandals. For some reason, she really loves the fact that they're wearing matching sandals--that after all these years, they've both stuck to the basic set. She stares at her shoes even after she’s set them aside, thinking about how little things have changed in the intervening years.

 

“Do you feel like this was kind of inevitable? Like, in a good way? Not because it’s right or because it’s necessary, but because I wanted it. Because I thought you might want it, too,” Sakura tells him. Then she amends, “You know, underneath the underneath.”

 

Kakashi turns his face away from her--trying not to get choked up, if she had to guess.

 

"Who told you that?" he says, forcibly flippant. "He sounds smart."

 

"Oh, I don't know about that." Kakashi just gives her a bear hug and rolls them around on the floor. Pakkun had once told her that this is exactly the kind of thing you do with new den-mates: get their scent everywhere, and look silly while doing it.

 

From there, it’s not hard to stay up through the rest of the night. There’s only about an hour of it left, anyway. And just before dawn, Sakura bullies him into checking on the plant again. The sky is lightening as Kakashi gently touches the waxy green leaf. He sounds totally confused when he says, "It looks better already."

 

Sakura thrusts her fist in the air, a grin spreading across her face as she yells, "The healing power of youth!" and then, "Oof!" as Kakashi tackles her to the ground and says, "Not in here. Never in here."

 

This floor and her are officially friends now. She and Kakashi are still familiarizing themselves with it when she hears it: a sweet sound, undercut by the buzz of her phone. When she slips it out of her pocket, it reads 4:59AM and it sings to her, hitting the high notes in the jangly tune of her alarm.

 

It’s her favorite again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in an illusory, interminable future where Sakura is a full-time medic nin and Konoha has a totally stable sociopolitical landscape and is an all-around awesome place to live. Kakashi is not hokage, but hey, neither is Naruto. 
> 
> Additional tags include: invasions of personal space, stalking, colloquial dialect that doesn’t necessarily belong here, malapropisms galore, everybody acts a little bit like a pothead, manhandling, OOCness, not a great model of verbal consent, and a get-together scene that goes on and on and on.
> 
> Thank you, DLasagne! Your willingness to humor me knows no bounds.
> 
> Freakydeakymoonmagic: you are the beta to end all betas, and you know it.
> 
> Porn will be forthcoming in the sequel. In all honesty, comments make me write faster so don’t be shy. <3


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